THE WHALE FISHEEY. 83 



To the Europa were assigned 280; to the Arctic, 250; to the Progress, 221 ; to the Lagoda, 195 ; 

 to the Daniel Webster, 113 ; to the Midas, 100 ; and to the Chance, 60 ; in all 1,219 souls in addi- 

 tion to their regular crews. On the 24th of October the larger portion of these vessels reached 

 Honolulu, and the remaining ones of the seven speedily followed. 



" On the receipt of the news of this disaster, more particularly in New Bedford, great excite- 

 ment was occasioned. The value of the wrecked vessels sailing from that port alone exceeded, 

 with their cargoes, $1,000,000. But the owners of whaling-vessels were not the men to yield 

 supinely to a single misfortune, however overpowering it might seem, and the ensuing year twenty- 

 seven ships were busy in the Arctic, and in 1873 twenty-nine visited that precarious sea. 



" The names of the beleaguered fleet were : from New Bedford, barks Awashonks, value 

 $58,000; Concordia, $75,000; Contest, $40,000; Elizabeth, $60,000; Emily Morgan, $60,000; 

 Eugenia, $56,000; Fanny, $58,000; Gay Head, $40,000; George, $40,000; Henry Taber, $52,000; 

 John Wells, $-40,000; Massachusetts, $46,000; Minerva, $50,000; Navy, $48,000; Oliver Crocker, 

 $48,000; Seneca, $70,000; William Eotch, $43,000; ships George Howland, $43,000; Eeindeer, 

 $40,000 ; Eoman, $60,000 ; Thomas Dickason, $50,000. From New London, bark J. D. Thompson, 

 value $45,000 ; and ship Monticello, $45,000. From San Francisco, barks Carlotta, value $52,000 ; 

 Florida, $51,000 ; and Victoria, $30,000. From Edgartown, ships Champion, value $40,000 ; and 

 Mary, $57,000. And from Honolulu, Sandwich Islands, barks Paira Kohola, $20,000; Comet, 

 $20,000 ; and Victoria 2d and ship Julian, $40,000. The Honolulu vessels had generally Ameri- 

 can owners, having been placed under the Hawaiian flag to protect them from rebel cruisers. 



" Capt. William H. Kelley, who commanded the Gay Head, visited the locality the following 

 year, and wrote home the condition of such of the vessels as still remained. The Minerva lay at 

 the entrance to Wainwright Inlet, as good in hull as when abandoned. Th'e T. Dickason lay on 

 her beam-ends on the bank, bilged and full of water. The Seneca was dragged by the ice up 

 the coast some distance ; her bowsprit was gone, bulwarks stove, and rudder carried away, and 

 she was frozen in solid. The Eeindeer sank, and the Florida was ashore on Sea Horse Islands, 

 burned to the water's edge. The rest of the fleet were either carried away by the ice, crushed to 

 pieces, or burned by the natives. The Gay Head and Concordia were burned where they lay. 

 ' The bark Massachusetts went around Point Barrow. There was one white man on board her 

 who staid up here last winter. He made his escape over the ice this summer, and was five days 

 getting back to the ships. He was about used up when they found him this summer. The 

 natives set out to kill him, but the women saved him, and afterward the old chief took care of 

 him. He saved a large quantity of bone, but the natives took it away from him, except a small 

 quantity. He said $150,000 would not tempt him to try another winter in the Arctic. He said 

 that four days after we left the ships last year the water froze over and the natives walked off to 

 tlie ships; and fourteen days after there came on a heavy northeast gale and drove all but the 

 ground-ice away (that never moved). Shortly after there blew another northeast gale, and he 

 said that of all the butting and smashing he ever saw, the worst was among those ships driving 

 into each other during those gales. Some were ground to atoms, and what the ice spared the 

 natives soon destroyed, after pillaging them of everything they pleased.' " 



In the season of 1876 the fleet met with another disaster of less pecuniary extent but more 

 appalling in its effect on human life. The fleet consisted of eighteen American ships and barks 

 and two foreign vessels. Of these, twelve were lost or abandoned in the Arctic. " Much of the 

 melancholy story seems a duplicate description of that of 1871. Again the fleet had entered that 

 fatal ocean early in August, and again commenced the season's whaling with prospects of fair 



